Adorable tyke getting his grub on, or ticking germ bomb?

Leading proponents of the slideshow list format and new champions of germaphobes everywhere, Forbes brings us this scary list of microscopic holiday health risks. Informative though it may be, if we all abide by this list’s directives the holidays will simply not happen. Among the dangerous activities, objects and surfaces:

• Shopping cart handles, meaning no massive holiday food and booze shopping. From now on, only get what you can carry in your arms at the grocery store.

• Children, it turns out, are walking disease machines. Don’t go near them, don’t speak to them, keep them in the yard or basement, and for God’s sake don’t feed them!

• Homemade eggnog, so good yet potentially deadly. Sadly, this means we’re stuck with the vastly inferior and impossibly weak store-bought variety. Be generous when adding your own doses and varieties of alcohol and spices. More festive fear-mongering after the jump.

• Airport check-in kiosks, with their endless stream of strange users, are the most dangerous place in an airport (the cavity search room seems cozy by comparison). If you can’t avoid these germ hot spots with e-tickets and online check-ins, why not box yourself up and fly cargo? It’s cheaper.

• Mistletoe is dangerous, apparently, because it could give you mono or the flu. But then again, being struck by lightning could, apparently, make me a more emotive robot. But that hasn’t happened yet, and even though I’m a robot and impervious to organic viruses, none of the humans I know have ever contracted mono or the flu from cheerful holiday mistletoe.

• Checkout lines, previously a germ-filled sneeze fest, might be less problematic this year, since nobody will be shopping. Still, be cautious, if a store has a line avoid it like the plague (which, incidentally, you might catch therein). If worst comes to worst, do all your shopping online, provided you have access to a well-cleaned mouse and keyboard.

A positive outcome to all this? Hand sanitizers and their various accessories are the new gift-giving code for “You’re impossible to shop for so I got you this thing for the bottom of your closet” (sorry candles, fancy pens and paperweights). Here’s one festive (and dangerous) use for the hand sanitizers you find in your stocking this year: